I think too many deserving schools in the non-BCS and lower IAAA ranks miss out each year. I am offended that a school can go 28-4 and miss the tourney because they get knocked out in their conference tourney.

I heard a sports talk guy credit Jay Bilas with the idea of stripping all automatic berths. I think that would ultimately be a negative. I think small conferences would really get that shaft then.

I think I would push for a package of reforms.

1) All teams in the power conferences (Pac 10, SEC, Big 12, Big East, A10, and Big 10) would be capped at playing no more than 4 games against teams from other power conferences out of conference. This would reduce most power conference teams' ability their ability to run up huge RPI advantages. The teams that would try to game the system by playing good teams from lesser conferences would only strengthen the RPI of bubble teams from those conferences.2) All conference tourneys and conference play must conclude by the first weekend in March.3) 96 teams will be selected for the tourney: 32 regular season champs; 32 tourney champs (or regular season runnerup if the reg champ wins the post-season tourney); and then 32 at large bids.4) All 32 D1 conferences will get two auto bids, 1 for the regular season champ and 1 for the tourney winner (or the regular season runner up if the regular season champ wins the tourney). The remaining 32 bids (and any slots left unfilled by runnerups or tourney winners) will be awarded to at large teams (mostly big conference teams).5) Any team taking the runner up slot must have at least 20 wins to qualify and must be at least 2 games over 500 in conference to qualify (so 9-7 or 10-8 in conference does not qualify for the second conference bid). If the second place team does not qualify, the conference can send the next highest place finisher who DOES fulfill the criteria. This will usually mean that the two best teams out of the smaller conferences make the field, unlike th current status quo where we regularly see a single dog team who got a lucky break in the conference tourney out of the small conferences. (If no teams fulfill the criteria, the conference gets a half share of the money for that bid, but the slot is then made an at large slot for that season.)6) The At-Large bids would go to teams that fished above 500 in conference with over 20 wins total, with priority given to teams at least 2 games over 500 in conference. RPI would determine which teams one game over 500 in conference would get in, if needed. Total conferences bids would be limited to 40-45% of membership (ie. the 16 team BE would be capped at a MAXIUMUM of 7 teams, the 14 team Big 10 at 6, the 12 team SEC and the big 12 and 11 team Big 10 at 5, the 9 team MWC at 4, the 8 team WCC at 3.) Conferences would only be guaranteed that one team would defintely make it and if a second team met the criteria a second could make it. 7) The 64 lowest seeds must compete in a play-in round. They will play a single game to get into the field of 64 --- the tourney proper. Games will be spread out from Thursday to Sunday of the second weekend in March. The higher seed will host the game rather than creating the possibility of sending 4-8 small college teams to a remote site where they cannot fill a larger arena. This will additionally help squeeze teams that clearly can't hang out of the tourney. 8) The surviving 32 will have played their way into the actual 64 team bracket that fans can fill out in their office pool. The brackets would be released after the play in round.9) All regular season champions who have won more than 2/3 of their total games would be seeded in the top 14 seeds in each region rewarding them for season long excellence by not feeding them to the top 8 teams while still allowing a lot of leeway for top play-in round survivors to take top seeds.10) Every effort should be made to invite at least 14 teams local to the west region and 28 local to the west and midwest regions combined.

This proposal does a lot to try to gut the RPI argument that allows the power conferences to dominate the selection process. Flawed as it is, I have instead proposed using mostly wins vs. games played for general seeding purposes.

The RPI may be pretty good for seeding teams to avoid upsets, but it doesn't reward teams for winning most of the games on their schedule. The goal should be to reward teams that EARN a berth, not teams that have a lot of potential NBA talent but can't win.

The teams that are eliminated in the play in round ONLY would be eligible to play in the NIT or any other post season tourney.

I believe that any NCAA tournament (across any sport) must reserve at least half the spots for at-large teams, so 2 autobids per conference would not work. Maybe if they capped the number of teams that can go from one conference (like they do in the BCS) it might open up some spots for the little guys, although the big schools/conferences would throw a fit and probably have enough influence to stop it. Maybe if they improved the way they calculated RPI and other ranking systems, so that more weight was given to overall record, that might be a step forward.

By the way, which team went 28-4 and missed out? I was searching ESPN.com standings and couldn't figure out who it was.

Attention members of the AP Sports Media. Attention College Basketball Coaches. Are you lsitening? Great...NOW STAND UP FOR YOURSELVES AND YOUR PROFESSION!

The NCAA no longer has any control over college football, the BCS does. The NCAA controls the Division I Championship, but it went to Richmond in the "FCS". And we've seen the BCS push the "mid-majors" of the "FBS" out of the big money games. The same is happening in college basketball.

If you look at the at-large NCAA Basketball Tournament at-large teams chosen tonight by the selection committee, you'll see only a handful of schools from mid-major conferences:

#4 seed Xavier from the A10#9 seed Butler from the Horizon#8 seed BYU from the Mountain West#11 seed Dayton from the A10

That's it. 4 teams total out of the total 65 schools were at-large selections from "mid-major" conferences.

How does this happen?

Because it's a selection committee running the show. A selection committee that is responsible for providing the teams for the product, as Rick Barnes would hint, the CBS owns...not the NCAA.

The mid-majors were slighted. Why Arizona over St. Mary's, for example? Forget the over-stated nonsense about one player.

Not only was politics involved in some at-large selections, but also in seeding. Did the selection committee chair, SEC Commissioner, M. Slive, have a beef with Mississippi State or did he just go over-board not to promote the SEC Tournament Champion? Granted, MSU, finishing #3 in the SEC West for the regular season, had 12 loses, their wins over quality teams were generally late; but #13? And they have to go to Portland, OR to play #4 placed Washington, regualr season PAC10 champion. I remember a few years back, where Mississippi State, ranked higher, was placed in State of Texas to play then, a lower ranked Texas. It would look appropriate, if some questionable placements were not higher. Even top conferences have their pecking order that becomes obvious at times.

I commend the Big East for their high placements, but Villanova gets their first two games in Philadelphia???

All this talk about Memphis not geting a #1 seed because of being in C-USA, is sent west as a #2. Memphis can't just pick another conference to play in unless invited.

Slive claiming they look at individual teams and not conferences is disingenuous in my view. Most of these mid-majors have considerable difficulty getting top conference teams to visit.

Why 65 teams? Just pick Big East and ACC teams, with one or two from the Big Ten thrown in, and deal with 16 only. Not really for that, but in reality, it's heavily arranged for them.

Just pick Big East and ACC teams, with one or two from the Big Ten thrown in, and deal with 16 only. Not really for that, but in reality, it's heavily arranged for them.

Not sure what you mean here SEC. The SEC and Big 12 have averaged pretty close to the same # of teams for the past 7 years (including this one) with an average of ~ 5.25 teams per year or ~ 45% of their membership. Each of the BCS conferences are pretty close to that % of their conference membership as well. In addition, as far as I can remember, all the 6 BCS conferences earned about the same amount of money from the tournament (in the form of NCAA tourney credits).

By the way, which team went 28-4 and missed out? I was searching ESPN.com standings and couldn't figure out who it was.

Really I just threw that record out although I am sure something as aggregious has happened in the recent past. I had Utah State in mind. I know this year 30-4 Utah State was worried if they didn't win their tourney they wouldn't get in. That is ridiculous.

The Big East was dynamite this year and is a 16 member conference --- no problem with them getting the 7 teams in their conference that broke 20 wins in.

The ACC is a 12 team conference I am not as OK with them getting 7 teams in although they were qualitatively great as well. I thought maryland was the most marginal of tourney teams, but I can live with it as Maryland did break 20 wins.

Can anyone defend the Big 10 getting in 7 schools? 4 or even 5 with an IMO deserving Penn State (they went 10-8 in conference, 23-11 overall, 4-3 vs. top 25 teams and 8-10 vs. top 100), I can understand, but Minnesota, Michigan, and Wisconsin? It was a very mediocre conference with great depth so the depth of the league dragged up everyone's RPI.

This happens every year. The overreliance on RPI lets the BCS conferences dominate the BB bids.

I am from big 12 country, but I wouldn't have a problem taking out Texas and OSU out of the tourney. Throw them in win Kansas State, inspite of their 20+ wins. They aren't good enough to beat 2 top teams and win it all, so why are they in? Money. To eliminate non BCS schools and keep the tourny money in BCS conferences' hands.

The Pac 10 had 4 legit tourney teams this year. I would argue that if you don't break 500 in your conference you shouldn't be in the tourney. (Now I'll concede USC winning the tourney allowed them to play their way in, but Arizona? No. As talented as they are, they haven't earned it.

Right there are 6 slots. Why Not UNM who finished tied for 1st in the MWC? Why not 22-9 San Diego State with Tourney proven coach Steve Fisher? Why not 27-7 Creighton who tied for first with a 14-4 conference record in the always strong MVC? Why Not 26-6 St. Mary's which went 20-2 when their star point guard Patty Mills was healthy? Why not 26-7 Davidson with Stephon Curry? Why not Tulsa who went 25-10, finishing second to Memphis at 12-4 in conference USA? Why not UALR who went 13-3 tying for the best record in the sunbelt while emassing a 23-8 record? Why not Vermont who 24-8 and tied for first in their conference with a 13-3 record? Why not Weber State who in spite of a modest 21-10 record, destroyed their conference going 15-1?

There were a lot of less talented teams playing better than Texas or OSU who could have legitmately knocked off a top or second tier team and made the tourney a whole lot less predictable and a lot more exciting.

Eventually the smaller conferences have to stop allowing their claims on tourney invites and tourney money to be stolen from them based on an RPI system that punishes them for being in a weaker conference.

Really if you want to reduce the Tourney down, you could have only teams in the RPI top 40 who have played 4 games against the top 25 and have wining records + the 1-3 teams in the RPI top 10 that don't. Probably 16 teams.

Your national champion is almost always in the group. The rest of the teams are icing. They draw out the tourneys to create more game revenue. They eliminate a couple of the top teams who either lack depth or experience injuries.

The 5th to 8th teams out of BCS conferences are just there to keep the #1A and #2 teams from the non-BCS conferences from making money in the Tourney.

I think the non BCS FBS schools -minus BCS lapdogs the MWC and A10 --- should go to the networks enmasse and hijack the selection process. Davidson was good enough to legitimately merit a tourney slot. Instead of Stephon Curry, TV got Minnesota. That COST them big money. I think St. Mary had a run in them and would have wanted to see Patty Mills in the dance. The small schools CREATE the excitement that drives viewership. They need to present their case to the TV networks.

* Seattle is not technically a GW member as far as I know, but it just made it easier to layout.** 5 of the 32 champions do not qualify for top 14 seeding, due to losing more than 1/3 of their total games.

conference limits would knock florida, Texas, Kansas St, Boston College, UNLV, and Wisconsin out. (ie. the Big 12 already would have Kansas, Oklahoma, and Missouri with TAMU and OSU having the better records overall to complete the conference's max allotment of 5 teams.) Dusquesne and USA would simply fail to get in due to lesser overall records.

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